At Tom’s Guide, we’re always hunting for the best TV. As new models come out, we put them through a rigorous testing regiment, all to help you make the best decision you can possibly make when shopping for a new OLED or QLED TV. We test all the top TVs each year — close to four dozen of them — and these are the 4K TVs that we recommend.
What are we looking for when we review the best TVs? We want everything that you want: great picture quality, rich sound, and all of the smart features available today. We take all those metrics and weigh them against the price of the TV. The bar for the best $500 TV is lower than the bar for the best $2,000 TV. That way, we have a pick that will fit everyone’s budget.
So what are the best TVs available now? The Hisense U8K was recently promoted to the top spot due to its on-going affordability and phenomenal performance. Other top-scoring models like the LG G3 OLED and Samsung QN90C still hold high spots on our list, but given the tough financial constraints on our readers, we wanted to place a higher emphasis on more affordable models.
With a new year just beginning, we’ll keep tracking the best TVs as they’re announced so be sure to follow along with our CES 2024 coverage where we’re bound to see the next generation of cutting-edge TV tech.
Nick Pino
My name’s Nick and I look after our guides to the best TVs, best OLED TVs and best 4K TVs. Most of my day is spent watching and evaluating new screens from LG, Samsung, Sony, Hisense, TCL and Vizio. I have 10 years of experience in AV, and before I joined Tom’s Guide I was formerly the Senior Editor, TV and AV at TechRadar. I love helping people find the perfect TV, so please feel free to reach out over email or tag me on Twitter and I can help you out.
The best TVs you can buy today
The quick list
Here’s a quick overview of the best TVs you can buy right now based on our testing and reviews. And keep up on scrolling if you want to see our in-depth analysis of all the top TVs for every budget.
The best TV (for most people)
This TV brings high-end features to a mid-level price bracket. Its peak brightness exceeds almost any TV, and its color reproduction is phenomenal as well.
The best OLED is also the brightest
The LG G3 OLED is exceptionally bright for an OLED TVs, and thus its visuals are eye-catching no matter what you want to watch. A few tiny flaws like its sound and less-than-cutting-edge HDR color keep it from perfection.
The best value TV
The award-winning TCL 6-Series is no longer around in 2023, but the new QM8 model hits all the same notes — and, thanks to some recent discounts, can be found for under $1,000.
The 4K QLED TV to beat in 2023
The Samsung QN90C Neo QLED TV is the best TV for brightness. With strong HDR brightness, ample viewing options and top-notch picture performance, we highly recommend it.
Best TV under $500
If you don’t want to spend thousands on a new TV, the Hisense U6K is a great budget pick. Its Mini-LED backlighting offers spectacular contrast while its quantum dot filter ensures well-saturated colors.
The best QD-OLED
It’s the most expensive TV on our list, but the Sony Bravia XR A95L is the best looking TV in 2023. It’s the most advanced set the company produces and comes fully loaded with the best features.
The best gaming TV
The Samsung S90C OLED offers HDMI 2.1 allowing for VRR, ALLM, and up to 144Hz rates giving you just about everything you would ever possibly need from a gaming TV.
The best mid-range OLED
If spending more than $1,500 on a new OLED TV wasn’t what you had planned on, check out the LG C3 OLED that offers a great performance at a reasonable price.
9. Samsung QN900C Neo QLED 8K TV
The best 8K TV
Samsung’s top 8K TV is a little overkill right now given the lack of native 8K content, but if you want to be on the cutting-end of TV tech, it’s the best 8K TVs you can buy right now.
Best TV
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Buy it if
✅ You want a Mini-LED TV for its performance: Its peak brightness exceeds any TV around that price, and its color reproduction is as good as some of this year’s best TVs.
✅ You use Google devices and services: Google TV is smart and well-rounded, especially for those in Google’s ecosystem, and who already use services like Google Assistant.
✅ You want a TV with good sound: Audio performance is a lot like the HDR performance — it’s great. The U8K’s 2.1.2 speaker system is plenty powerful for most medium-sized living rooms.
Don’t buy it if:
❌ You care about color accuracy: Colors, while vibrant, aren’t going to look all that natural.
❌ You want a super-fast gaming TV: Anything lower than 20 milliseconds is considered nearly imperceptible, but it does mean that serious gamers will be better served with one of the other TVs on that table.
❌ You have a big family that gather around the TV: Colors will desaturate as you shift off-axis. This is relatively common for Mini-LED TVs so it’s not anything surprising, but it’s an area that companies like Hisense will have to improve upon
The bottom line
📺 The Hisense U8K ULED is one of the most colorful TVs we’ve tested and puts out above average light for its price point. There’s room for improvement here — especially when it comes to input lag and color accuracy — but the U8K vastly improves on the Hisense U8H from 2022. ★★★★
What you need to know
The Hisense U8K sits at the top of our list of the best TVs because it offers an incredible bang for your buck. Its deep, rich colors, high level of contrast and high peak brightness put it well-above any other TV at this price point. What’s more, we find this TV works in almost any living room, even one with lots of ambient light. Thanks to its Mini-LED lighting, colors don’t desaturate as you move off-axis, and its Full Array Local Dimming panel helps the TV retain good black levels in scenes with higher levels of brightness. In our testing, we measured its color saturation levels at a groundbreaking 80% of the Rec2020 Color Space, all thanks to its quantum dot filter and Mini-LED panel. In short, the U8K performs like a TV twice the cost.
So why doesn’t it get a perfect 5 out of 5 score from us? Well, it does have its faults, as you’d expect from any TV under $1,000. It has a middling input lag (13.2ms) and its Google TV smart platform can be slightly slow when when jumping from one streaming app to another. Also, although the TV has a very wide color gamut, its accuracy right out of the box is around 4.46 (measured by a Delta E value).
These issues are unlikely to affect your enjoyment of the TV, but it does show that there’s still room for improvement here. If you want a TV that has faster response times or more accurate colors (and you don’t mind paying more for it) then the Sony A95L or Samsung S90C OLED found lower on our list are worth buying instead.
Design: For our tests, we used a 65-inch model. At 56.4 pounds this TV is relatively hefty and will require two people to put into place, especially if you plan on wall-mounting. To mount, make sure you buy a 400mm x 400mm VESA Wall Mount Standard which, thankfully, shouldn’t be hard to find as it’s relatively common. If you want to simply place it on top of an entertainment center, you can do that using the two included legs that come in the box. The U8K allows for two different leg configurations, a wider stance and a narrower one, to accommodate different spaces. We highly recommend using the wider stance whenever possible to reduce the possibility of the TV tipping over.
Performance: We were incredibly impressed with the Hisense U8K’s performance. In our lab tests, conducted by Tom’s Guide’s Head of Testing Matthew Murray, the Hisense U8K was able to go toe-to-toe with the much more expensive Samsung QN90C and even surpasses it in some key metrics like SDR brightness and color saturation. It cannot be understated how impressive this is.
As we mentioned earlier, the biggest issue in terms of performance is the Hisense U8K’s color accuracy — it performed worse out-of-the-box than the Samsung QN90C or the rival LG C3 OLED. This can be fixed with some fine-tuning or proper calibration, but just aware that right out of the box colors can look a bit oversaturated. Serious gamers might also notice the smallest bit of latency. Anything under 20 milliseconds is nearly imperceptible to the human eye, but there are other TVs that have a hair less input lag for a slightly more responsive feel.
Smart TV: We genuinely like Google TV as a smart platform and we think you will, too. It does a phenomenal job at surfacing new and recommended content for you to watch and it has access to all the main streaming services. Even better, it doesn’t really push you to use one service over another the same way an Amazon Fire TV might. The only potential issue is that you might notice a bit of a slowdown when you switch from one streaming app to the next.
Read the full review: Hisense U8K Mini-LED TV
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Strong performance for the price. | ★★★★☆ |
| Design | A great-looking TV but not OLED-levels of thin. | ★★★★☆ |
| Performance | Shows and movies give off a serious ‘wow’ factor. | ★★★★★ |
| Smart TV | The best smart TV operating system on the market. | ★★★★★ |
Best OLED TV
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Buy it if
✅ Outstanding brightness: The G3’s peak brightness of 1,361 nits puts it solidly in LED territory — no other OLED TV set comes close.
✅ Great for gamers and sports fans: 120Hz native refresh rate with four HDMI 2.1 ports makes this great for both gamers and sports fans alike. This set pairs well with the PS5 and Xbox Series X.
✅ Alpha 9 Gen 6 Processor 4K: LG’s top processor provides excellent upcaling of HD content to Ultra HD, along with great motion processing.
Don’t buy it if:
❌ HDR color could be better: The G3 only manages to reproduce around 96.73% of the UHDA-P3 color space. That’s still good, but it represents a noticeable drop-off compared to other OLED TVs on this list that cover 99%.
❌Sound quality is lackluster: With a 4.2-channel 60W speaker system and Dolby Atmos, the set doesn’t sound bad, but it also doesn’t quite sound good.
The bottom line
📺 The LG G3 OLED TV is a spectacular TV. If you have the money to buy one of the best TVs out there, the LG OLED evo G3 should absolutely be on your shortlist — and maybe even at the very top of it.. ★★★★★
What you need to know
LG OLED TVs are always at the top of best TV guides, and Tom’s Guide’s list is no different. This year, we’re recommending the LG G3 OLED as the top choice, as it uses the new META panels from LG Display for higher levels of brightness. On top of higher brightness that aids in daytime viewing, you’re still getting perfect blacks levels, infinite contrast and the wide color gamut we’ve seen year-after-year from OLED TVs. In short, this is just a super souped-up OLED TV. In terms of features, all of LG’s OLED TVs use WebOS, which we find easy to use and very responsive. The Wii-like remote control can take some getting used to, but it feels great in the hand and is harder to lose than other smaller remotes you might be used to. Best of all, though, is the design of the TV, which really has a gallery-like appearance to it. If you want a TV that seamlessly blends in with your decor, this is the model to go for.
So what’s the downside? The LG G3 OLED is the most premium 4K OLED TV in LG’s lineup, and that comes with a pretty hefty price tag. You’re paying for the best performance and your wallet will sting after purchasing one.
Design: In terms of design, the LG G3 OLED is unmatched. It’s the most beautifully crafted OLED TV on the market with an impossibly thin screen. The bezel is the slimmest we’ve ever seen (less than one-sixteenth of an inch) and it helps really sell the look of a framed picture. It’s worth noting, however, that the LG G3 OLED is designed to be wall-mounted and doesn’t come with a stand. There’s one available, but it will cost extra. If you want something that looks good on a shelf, the LG C3 OLED listed further down the page has a similar look and comes with a stand in the box.
Performance: So what makes the LG OLED G3 better than all the other LG OLED TVs? The G3 OLED comes with LG’s “Brightness Booster Max” technology that makes it around 70% brighter than the first generation OLED panels from LG Display. Extra brightness means that HDR content is going to look a lot more dynamic on the G4 OLED. We didn’t see a huge boost in color vibrancy between the LG G3 OLED and LG C3 OLED models, but the difference in brightness is very noticeable.
Smart TV: Google TV is great for surfacing new content to watch, but LG’s WebOS platform is cleaner-looking, faster and easier to navigate. There’s not a huge change in the 2023 version compared to older versions, but WebOS has gained the ability to have multiple user profiles which is great if you have kids constantly messing up your recommendation algorithm. When you’re not watching anything, the LG G3 can be put in an Always Ready mode that will display art or photos, or can simply play background music. It also won’t take up as much power in this mode, so we’ll typically leave it in this mode when we’re not watching anything.
Read the full review: LG G3 OLED
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | The pinnacle of price and performance. | ★★★★☆ |
| Design | A familiar, yet stunning piece of hardware. | ★★★★★ |
| Performance | Better and brighter picture than previous OLEDs. | ★★★★☆ |
| Smart TV | Content-rich interface with curated recommendations . | ★★★★★ |
The best value TV
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Buy it if
✅ You want a cheap TV that still looks good: For the best smart TV experience in a TV under $1,000, it’s hard to deny that the TCL QM8 is the best option around.
✅ You demand good image quality: This TV offers better color, brightness, and shorter lag times than the previous Roku model. Color reproduction was an impressive 99.97% of the Rec 709 color space.
✅ You want a TV that comes with Google TV: It’s also snappy, offering noticeably quicker and smoother operations than other platforms, including the sometimes slow Roku TV software that many TCL smart TVs use.
Don’t buy it if:
❌ You sit off-axis to the TV: You want to be sitting head-on with this TV. Sit too far off to one side, and you’re going to lose a significant amount of color saturation.
❌ You want great-sounding audio: The TV is only outfitted with a pair of 8-watt speakers that merely offer passable stereo sound and decent volume. You might want a good soundbar.
❌ You need more than two HDMI 2.1 ports: Although it has a refresh rate of 120Hz, only two of its HDMI ports offer full-spec 2.1 compliance for 4K/120fps gameplay.
The bottom line
📺 The TCL QM8 Mini-LED TV is a solid upgrade on the beloved 6-Series, and it deserves its spot on our list for offering incredible performance for a very reasonable price. ★★★★
What you need to know
It was a really close call between the Hisense U8K and the TCL QM8. Both TVs are extraordinary values for the money, and while we do think the Hisense U8K is the overall better pick, the TCL QM8 deserved a spot on our list as well. Like the Hisense U8K, the QM8 uses Mini-LEDs for better backlight control and quantum dots to enhance contrast and color. With up to 2,300 local dimming zones and TCL’s High Brightness Ultra Direct LED backlight, you’re going to get unbelievable contrast for an LED-LCD TV. We also really like the AIPQ Engine Gen 3 that helps upscale HD/SDR content for the QM8’s 4K screen as well as the TV’s numerous gaming features.
The only major drawbacks here are the TV’s 8W speakers that can feel a bit underwhelming and the lack of an ATSC 3.0 tuner that can be found in the Hisense U8K. The latter isn’t a deal-breaker, especially if you don’t plan on using a digital antenna, but it’s absence is still felt here.
Design: The QM8 may not have the beautiful slim design of the LG G3 OLED, but it’s certainly not a bad design, either. Its minimal bezel that measures in a less than an eighth-inch on all sides maximizes screen real estate. Beneath the bottom of the screen are physical controls as well as a switch for turning on or off the far-field microphone. The TCL QM8 offers four HDMI ports, however only two of them are HDMI 2.1-compliant, meaning you’ll have to choose which devices can pass 4K/120Hz signal and which ones can’t.
Performance: The QM8, like the U8K, is a good pick if you need higher-than-average brightness to combat ambient light. In our testing, the TCL QM8 was able to hit 1,348 nits in Movie mode with SDR content, a significant increase over other 4K HDR TVs that we’ve measured. With HDR content, the QM8 was able to hit above 2,000 nits in a 5%, 10% and even 25% window sizes. This brightness paired with the Mini-LED backlight offers great contrast that approaches OLED levels. Colors are vivid as well, with our tests showing that the QM8 can cover 80% of the BT2020 color spectrum. Just like the U8K, however, its out-the-box color accuracy leaves a lot to be desired with a Delta E score of 4.4614. With some tweaking, this number can drop significantly, but it’s worth noting that some colors might appear a bit oversaturated when you first start it up.
Smart TV: Like a lot of other manufacturers, TCL has shifted to using Google TV in its 2023 models, including the QM8. Google TV is clean and runs smooth on this model, and thanks to the remote’s built-in microphone and the TV’s integrated microphone, you can search for shows and movies using only your voice. If you want some privacy, you can turn off the voice assistant via a physical switch on the TV itself.
Read the full review: TCL QM8 Mini-LED TV
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Great value for your dollar. | ★★★★★ |
| Design | Its basic plastic construction does the job. | ★★★★☆ |
| Performance | Improved performance and a strong 4K HDR TV. | ★★★★★ |
| Smart TV | The best smart TV system on the market. | ★★★★★ |
The best QLED TV
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Buy it if
✅ You want better brightness than OLED: OLED is the king of contrast, but any ambient light can wash out the picture. Samsung’s QLED TVs can handle more ambient light than almost any other TV because of its high peak brightness.
✅ Eye-popping colors and clarity: Yes brightness is important to counter glare, but it’s also important in color reproduction and clarity. Better brightness, brighter colors.
✅ Great for gamers: Most TVs on this list are great for gamers, but the Samsung QN90C might be one of the best for PS5 and Xbox Series X due to its low input lag.
Don’t buy it if:
❌ You care about Dolby Vision: Dolby Vision is, by far, the best HDR format. It’s tuned to match the brightness and black levels of each individual scene, so not having it on a TV this nice is a bummer.
❌ You’re afraid of your TV tipping over: The central stand doesn’t offer as much stability as we typically expect. Samsung transitioned to a hexagonal base design that uses less space, but that seems to have come at a cost.
The bottom line
📺 The Samsung QN90C Neo QLED TV has all the hallmarks of a premium TV: best-in-class HDR brightness, ample viewing options and strong picture performance. ★★★★★
What you need to know
The Samsung QN90C is the swiss army knife of TVs. It’s good at basically everything, from upscaling content to boosting brightness, and it’s available in pretty much every screen size fathomable. Whether you want a 43-inch telly for your office or guest bedroom, or you need an 85-inch behemoth for your living room, you can find a QN90C model to match. Like our top picks, the Samsung QN90C uses Mini-LED for better contrast and a higher peak brightness. Unlike our other top picks it has a slightly faster input latency and four full-spec HDMI 2.1 ports that can pass 4K/120Hz signal that make it a better pick for gamers.
The downside here is that you’re paying a lot more for this slight improvement on performance and its lackluster Tizen smart platform. It’s still worth considering for all those extras, but it doesn’t exactly provide the best value compared to our top picks.
Design: Visually, the Samsung QN90C won’t blow you away — its pillar stand is a bit ugly compared to other screens that use two wide feet, and its minimalistic design doesn’t do much to separate itself from the pack. The major difference between the QN90C and the slightly pricier QN95C model is Samsung’s One Connect Box that helps hide the wires running into the back of the TV. For a cleaner look, the QN95C really nails it, but you can achieve a similar effect on the QN90C with some carefully placed zip ties. The good news is that the QN90C has four HDMI 2.1 ports, one of which can be used as the eARC port for soundbars. For gamers, HDMI 2.1 ports enable 4K/120Hz pass-through as well as Auto Low Latency Mode and Variable Refresh Rate. Have we mentioned that this is a great gaming TV?
Performance: While other models from Hisense and TCL have finally caught up to Samsung in terms of peak brightness, the QN90C is a strong performer when it comes to light output. In the relatively balanced Filmmaker mode, the QN90C was able to reached 1987.34 nits in a 10% window. That’s roughly a 5% increase over last year’s excellent QN90B QLED and over twice the peak brightness of the LG C3 OLED that you’ll find a little lower on our list. As mentioned above, the Hisense U8K came close to the Samsung QN90C’s light output and the Samsung was able to best the U8K in terms of color accuracy right out of the box. The QN90C is slightly more expensive, but it doesn’t require nearly as much fiddling in the settings to get the color dialed in correctly.
Smart TV: There’s nothing outright wrong with Samsung’s proprietary Tizen smart TV platform. It’s fully functional with all the mainstream streaming services as well as a nifty smart home hub for any SmartThings devices you might own. If you don’t own any SmartThings devices, however, then Tizen really doesn’t present many advantages and its relatively complex settings menu can be confusing to navigate. Having some free content in the way of the Samsung TV Plus streaming service makes up for that slightly, but by and large we think Google TV is the better option to go for if we had the choice between the two platforms.
Read the full review: Samsung QN90C Neo QLED TV
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | A bit more affordable than Samsung’s 2023 flagship TV. | ★★★★★ |
| Design | Flush bezels and 1-inch wide body. | ★★★★☆ |
| Performance | Best-in-class brightness and impressive performance | ★★★★★ |
| Smart TV | Not the best, not the worst. | ★★★★☆ |
Best Cheap TV
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Buy it if
✅ You want a budget TV that looks great: Not that long ago, you got what you paid for with budget TVs but the Hsense U6 performs well outside its price range.
✅ You want a Mini-LED TV with awesome HDR: Hisense’s implementation of Mini-LED enables better contrast with above-par black levels and a quantum dot for color saturation.
✅ You want better black levels: The U6’s Mini-LED panel allows it to put dark shadows next to bright highlights without noticeable haloing and ensures a lower likelihood of the dreaded Dirty Screen Effect from non-uniform lighting elements.
Don’t buy it if:
❌ You’re looking for a gaming TV: Gamers might want to look elsewhere as the U6K’s 60Hz panel and lack of HDMI 2.1 ports mean it has a distinctly last-gen feel to it.
❌ You need great sound quality out of the box: The Hisense U6’s speakers are good for the price but aren’t going to blow you away.
❌ You want OLED quality at a discount: Is the picture as sumptuous as what you’d get from an OLED screen? No. But for a TV priced this way, there was absolutely nothing to complain about.
The bottom line
📺 The Hisense U6K delivers an outstanding picture for its price tag. Its Mini-LED backlighting offers spectacular contrast while its quantum dot filter ensures well-saturated colors. For under $500, this is the best TV you can buy. ★★★★
What you need to know
Hisense is a brand that’s all about providing value for your dollar, hence why the U8K is so highly rated on Tom’s Guide. The Hisense U6K keeps a lot of what makes the U8K so great, namely its Mini-LED backlight that enables better contrast with above-par black levels and a quantum dot filter for enhanced color saturation. The Hisense U6K trades the U8K’s native 120Hz panel for one with a 60Hz refresh rate but, considering that this TV is often priced below $500, it’s a tradeoff most folks should be fine with.
So why isn’t this one the best TV of the year if it’s such a good value? The U6K doesn’t have as powerful of a processor on-board, which means that upscaling and motion processing are mediocre at best. Its lack of any HDMI 2.1 ports means gamers will be stuck at 4K/60, and there’s no ATSC 3.0 tuner here, either.
For under $500, it’s the best cheap TV we think you can buy, but it’s important you know why it’s sitting down here on our list instead of at the number-one spot.
Design: Admittedly, the Hisense U6K probably isn’t the chicest TV you’re ever going to lay eyes on — its legs are plastic and 3.1 inches deep, it doesn’t sit exactly flat on the wall. Still, I don’t think it looks awful, either, especially when you’re actually watching something on the TV. The bigger issue in terms of design is the HDMI 2.0b ports and 60Hz panel that won’t maximize the graphical prowess of the Xbox Series X and PS5. If you’re not a gamer, this isn’t a huge deal, but it’s something that we noted in our review.
Performance: You’ve heard it before, but Mini-LED is clutch here, helping the Hisense U6K punch well above its weight in terms of performance. The U6K doesn’t have as many full array local dimming zones as the U8K to control the brightness, but we were impressed by how bright the U6K got in our testing. It was able to beat out pretty much every other budget model minus the Roku Plus Series. The downside, again, is that upscaling can be hit-or-miss here, and you’ll probably notice some fuzziness as you watch HD/SDR content from an OTA antenna or cable box. The other issue we had is that, despite this being a strong performer with color when we sat directly in front of it, you will notice some desaturation as you move off-axis, so maybe don’t buy this as your main living room TV.
Smart TV: The Hisense U6K is another Google TV, much like the higher-priced U8K. All of the same benefits apply here in terms of the personalized recommendations and nicely curated rows of new content. The U6K was a bit sluggish out of the box, which was a bit worrying, and we did hit some snafus when perusing Disney Plus. It’s not guaranteed that you’ll have the same problems, but it’s worth mentioning here just in case you run into them yourself.
Read the full review: Hisense U6K Mini-LED TV
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Compared against its more expensive rivals, the Hisense U6K is an outstanding bargain | ★★★★★ |
| Design | The Hisense U6 does little to hide its budget aesthetic. | ★★★☆☆ |
| Performance | The Hisense U6K delivers an outstanding picture for its price tag. | ★★★★☆ |
| Smart TV | While it looks exactly the same here as it does on upper-end models, Google TV does run a bit more…erratic on the Hisense U6. | ★★★☆☆ |
The best QD-OLED TV
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Buy it if
✅ You want the best of both OLED and QLED: QD-OLED tech delivers a TV that’s both bright and has near-perfect contrast.
✅ Design really matters to you: It bears repeating: the screen measures a trifle more than one-eighth inch thick. If you like that whole floating screen look, this TV has it.
✅ You want good out-of-the-box sound: The A95L can’t beat a standalone soundbar, but music, dialogue, and sound effects sound crisp and clear.
Don’t buy it if:
❌ You care about low latency: Gamers might be turned off by the above average amount of input latency (16.2ms).
❌ You want more than two HDMI 2.1 ports: Unfortunately, the Sony A95L only has two full-spec HDMI 2.1 ports available.
❌ You want a cheap TV: Cutting-edge technology often comes at a premium cost, and the A95L is no exception.
The bottom line
📺 The Sony Bravia A95L OLED TV would’ve taken the crown had it not be the most expensive TV we tested in 2023. If you have a wallet thick enough, though, everything you watch on it will be a transcendent viewing and listening experience. ★★★★★
What you need to know
If someone asked us which TV we’d buy for ourselves if we had an unlimited budget and a perfect spot in a dedicated home theater space, the Sony Bravia A95L OLED would be the TV we’d pick. It is so genuinely good, that it could put any other TV on this list to shame…too bad the pricing starts at around $3,000 for one.
So what makes this Sony OLED the superlative screen? It offers the best picture performance with outlandish color vibrancy and accuracy, plus a surprisingly high peak brightness and a beautiful-sounding audio system. Its Google TV platform is identical to all the others on this list, but PS5 owners will get an expanded set of features by pairing their Sony console with this Sony TV.
It’s a shame it’s so bloody expensive because this is a TV that everyone in the world deserves to see at some point in their lives.
Design: The A95L is a conundrum: It’s a beautiful TV that’s super slim (about 0.25 inch at its thinnest point) but also relatively big generally speaking. It’s also heavier than other OLED TVs (the 65-inch model weighs 51.6 pounds) and you’ll never know fear until you’re lifting a paper-thin, $3,000 TV to get it onto a wall-mount. Once it’s properly mounted, however, it looks great. The major downside here is that the HDMI 2.1 ports are limited in availability here with only two to choose from.
Performance: You wouldn’t know it by its name, but the A95L is a QD-OLED TV that uses both organic light-emitting diodes (made from Deuterium, most likely) and a quantum dot filter applied in between the screen and the panel. In combination, they offer better color vibrancy and expanded brightness on top of the perfect black levels you’ve come to expect from OLED. What Sony adds to the mix, however, is its Cognitive Processor XR that is absolutely brilliant at processing motion and upscaling sub-4K video. It’s arguably the best processor in the world right now, though I’m sure Samsung and LG would wildly disagree with that statement. The results speak for themselves, however. Anything and everything looks incredible on the A95L. From games to movies and TV shows, there’s not one thing that doesn’t look great on it.
Smart TV: Good TVs are made even better by their smart platforms, and the A95L is no exception. Thanks to the A95L’s system on a chip (SoC), Google TV runs fast and fluid, with no noticeable hitches or slowdowns. With so much power under the hood we’re not expecting to see any problems for years to come, either.
Read the full review: Sony Bravia XR A95L
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | It’s steep. | ★★☆☆☆ |
| Design | This set’s svelteness is impressive. | ★★★★★ |
| Performance | Next-generation picture quality (mostly). | ★★★★★ |
| Smart TV | Simple, clean, and rich. | ★★★★★ |
The best TV for gaming
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Buy it if
✅ Eye-popping colors and clarity: Yes brightness is important to counter glare, but it’s also important in color reproduction and clarity. Better brightness, brighter colors.
✅ Great for gamers: Most TVs on this list are great for gamers, but the Samsung S90C is the best for PS5 and Xbox Series X due to its feature set, price and low input lag.
Don’t buy it if:
❌ You care about Dolby Vision: Dolby Vision is, by far, the best HDR format. It’s tuned to match the brightness and black levels of each individual scene, so not having it on a TV this nice is a bummer.
The bottom line
📺 The Samsung S90C OLED is all about giving gamers everything they need for the best possible experience. Four HDMI 2.1 ports? Check. VRR, ALLM, 9.2ms response time? Check. Check. Check. ★★★★★
What you need to know
Gamers are spoilt for choices when it comes to picking out a TV. In fact, you could make the case for each and every model on this list that they’d be the best TV for gamers. But the Samsung S90C is the only one that meets every single spec: a low input lag (9.2ms), HDMI 2.1 allowing for VRR, ALLM, and up to 144Hz refresh rates. That’s not even mentioning the new game-streaming options found on Tizen.
Obviously, the S90C is good for more than just gaming — it uses a QD-OLED panel after all. The result here is the same as in the Sony A95L OLED: Colors are more stunning and contrast looks incredible. The S90C does have a few trade-offs compared to the higher-end S95C (the OneConnect Box being one of them) but the price difference isn’t worth paying in our opinion.
For gamers, this is the be-all, end-all model.
Design: It might not have the OneConnect Box, but the Samsung S90C’s still stocked up with four HDMI 2.1 ports that gamers will appreciate. The Samsung S90C’s pedestal design has a few tricks up its sleeve, too. For one, it gives the illusion that the TV’s floating in the air, an illusion that’s all the more believable given the less than one-eighth inch bezel that surrounds the screen. Samsung’s marketing name for this is “Infinity Display”, but I think its minimalist beauty speaks for itself.
Performance: Gaming is going to be a real bright spot for the Samsung S90C (we couldn’t resist trying Starfield on it when we reviewed it) but it’s no slouch when it comes to playing both SDR and HDR movies. In all of the above scenarios, the S90C demonstrated outstanding color reproduction, wide color gamut coverage and above-average brightness. Upscaled content looked great as did motion handling (after a bit of tweaking). There are few TVs that can compete with the Samsung S90C in terms of sheer performance prowess, so it gets full marks here.
Smart TV: Samsung’s Tizen system is more than adequate for daily viewing. It has all the creature comforts you’d expect alongside a full roster of apps, and it ties into the Samsung SmartThings ecosystem, allowing you to control some smart home devices straight from the TV. We found its deeply convoluted settings difficult to use and expect you might feel the same way if you’re someone who likes to tweak the picture, but for the most part Tizen gets the job done.
Read our full Samsung S90C OLED review
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | It’s not cheap, but it’s fairly priced for its feature set. | ★★★★☆ |
| Design | You’d never know this beautiful TV was built with gamers in mind. | ★★★★★ |
| Performance | Rich, precise colors and searing brightness. | ★★★★★ |
| Smart TV | Tizen can be a bit unwieldy to navigate. | ★★★☆☆ |
The best mid-range TV
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Buy it if
✅ You want an affordable OLED: This is one of the easiest-to-recommend TVs because it’s affordable and offers such great performance.
✅ You plan on next-gen gaming: For gamers, the LG C3 OLED is a fantastic option, offering support for Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) and Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM), HDMI 2.1, blue light reduction, Dark Room mode, and compatibility with Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium.
✅ You care about how your TV looks: The C3 looks like a winner and comes with everything you’d want from a TV serving as your home entertainment centerpiece: perfect blacks, thrilling contrast, and rich, accurate colors at every point across the visual spectrum.
Don’t buy it if:
❌ You don’t mind settling for an older C2 OLED: If you have a C2, there aren’t light-years of difference here to make an upgrade a necessity. If you don’t have an LG C2 OLED, you can find one for hundreds less than an LG C3 OLED.
❌ You want a TV with an ATSC 3.0 tuner: Without an ATSC 3.0 tuner, you won’t be able to watch NextGen TV broadcasts from your local stations.
The bottom line
📺 The LG C3 OLED doesn’t surpass the LG G3 OLED or Sony A95L, but it’s a good middle-of-the-road option that gives you 90% of the performance for a discounted price. ★★★★
What you need to know
LG’s C-Series OLED is a perennial favorite in the TV space. Each year, LG comes out with a few improvements to up picture performance (usually whatever technology was found in last year’s G-Series model) and delivers it at a reasonable price. The C3 OLED only holds a lower position on our list this year because it’s more expensive than new Mini-LED models from Hisense and TCL.
So is the LG C3 OLED a bad TV? Not in the least. Once you watch an OLED TV, you’ll have a hard time going back to a LED-LCD model. That’s how good the black levels, color volume and even off-axis viewing are on an OLED TV. The C3 OLED is great for gamers due to its support of Nvidia G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium, plus WebOS continues to be a great alternative to Google TV.
In a year where Hisense, TCL, Samsung and even LG itself didn’t deliver such homerun TVs, the LG C3 would’ve been the best TV money could buy — and it still is if you want a mid-range screen that doesn’t cost the world.
Design: The LG C3 OLED is stylish, but not revolutionary. It basically perfects the “slim-profile OLED TV on two legs” design LG’s been making for years. It can of course be wall-mounted via 300x200mm VESA mounting holes, and that’s our recommendation honestly, but it can of course sit pretty comfortably on a shelf and still look pretty cool. In terms of ports, all the main culprits are here with four HDMI 2.1 ports all with ALLM. Love it or hate it, the C3 also comes with LG’s Magic Remote.
Performance: While the LG C3 doesn’t use an all-new panel in 2023, it does have LG’s new a9 AI Processor Gen6 powering the show. With it, upscaling is going to look better and motion will look sleeker (once you turn off TruMotion, that is). It’s slightly dimmer than the QD-OLED TVs and LG G3 OLED that you’ll find above, but what you’re getting is still leagues ahead of where we were on the C8 or C9 from a few years ago. Better still, the C3 comes with built-in deterrents to burn-in, so you don’t need to treat it with kid gloves if you want to watch TV for a few hours. Yes, it’s going to be outperformed by models higher up on this list, but that’s nothing to be ashamed of — the C3 OLED is still in the top 10 of TVs released in 2023.
Smart TV: There’s nothing to dislike about LG’s WebOS smart platform. It’s Cast compatible and comes fully stocked with streaming services. It plays nice with most smart home platforms, if that’s something that Matters to you (see what I did there?), and it should stay steady and smooth for years to come.
Read the full review: LG C3 OLED
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | One of the most affordable OLED TVs in 2023. | ★★★★★ |
| Design | Svelte like most modern OLED TVs, the C3 also has an unusually sleek and stylish feel. | ★★★★★ |
| Performance | You can find TVs with better sound, but there aren’t many out there that offer you this much and perform at this level for the same price. | ★★★★☆ |
| Smart TV | If it’s not as advanced as Google TV, it might just be the next-best option out there. | ★★★★☆ |
The best 8K TV
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Buy it if
✅ You want exceptional realism and punchy HDR: Want high peak brightness? Samsung’s delivered a TV that could inspire you to wear sunglasses indoors.
✅ You want a great gaming experience: Sporting four HDMI 2.1 ports, the QN900C is more than equipped to handle the next-gen demands of consoles like PS5 and Xbox Series X.
✅ You want better-sounding audio: With a 6.2.4-channel system (that’s 12 speakers, folks) working in tandem with Samsung’s Object Tracking Sound Pro tech, the QN900C has no problem delivering excellent-sounding audio.
Don’t buy it if:
❌ You’re waiting for 8K content: Native 8K content is still incredibly rare, but thankfully 4K content looks great upscaled for larger screen sizes.
❌ You care about black crush: While the QN900C’s more subtle approach to backlighting effectively decreases light blooming, there is a slight trade-off that involves the introduction of black crush.
The bottom line
📺 The Samsung QN900C Neo QLED 8K TV is on the verge of overkill, but it deserves a spot on this list. No one really needs an 8K TV right now, but it’s tempting to think about buying one anyways. ★★★★
What you need to know
8K TVs are the future. At some point, 8K content is going to arrive and folks who bought into the technology early will have front row seats to the show. Unfortunately, it’s like buying a ticket to next year’s movie premiere — you might have front row seats but you simply have no idea when it’s going to start.
The good news is that the Samsung QN900C doesn’t only play 8K content and does a great job upscaling 4K, HD and even sub-HD content to fill the screen. Thanks to enhancements to that picture, it’s going to look phenomenal, but it won’t match the myriad details you’ll one day see in native 8K TV shows and movies.
Paying a premium for all this is not the best financial decision, admittedly, but if you’re someone who loves being on the cusp of what’s next, then the Samsung QN900C is the closest you can possibly stand to the cutting edge.
Design: The Samsung QN900C is another example of Samsung’s Infinity Display at work. You’ll barely notice the bezels once content starts playing, and the pedestal design helps to make the QN900C look every bit as futuristic as the picture. Spin it around to the back and you’ll find a 6.2.4-channel system. That’s some serious audio power, people. In terms of ports, all the essentials are here (all HDMI 2.1, of course) and they all connect in a neat orderly fashion to the OneConnect Box. It’s about as premium as premium gets.
Performance: What else would you expect from Samsung’s top model than sheer and utter perfection? Picture quality is absolutely astonishing, due in no small part to the Neo Quantum HDR 8K Pro processor that acts as the brains of the operation. Without enough horsepower, the picture would fall flat, but the QN900C has absolutely no problem running the upscaling and refining algorithms in real time. The result is a picture that you’re going to want to show off to everyone you know. The only issue here is that the Samsung QN900C is not an OLED, and that means black level details can be obscured. Our reviewer noticed a fair amount of black crush happening on the QN900C, so some dark scenes can be fairly murky. It’s not a deal breaker, but it’s a bummer when you’re paying so much for a TV of this caliber.
Smart TV: Like other Samsung TVs, the QN900C uses Tizen. It’s relatively straightforward, but sometimes settings can be hard to reach. The good news is that it has all the main streaming services and it runs buttery smooth.
Read the full review: Samsung QN900C Neo QLED 8K TV
| Attributes | Notes | Rating |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Expect to pay a lot for this great 8K TV. | ★★☆☆☆ |
| Design | The QN900C Neo QLED 8K TV is without peer in terms of industrial design | ★★★★★ |
| Performance | Black crush in darker scenes is a little disappointing, it’s far outweighed by everything the QN900C does right. | ★★★★☆ |
| Smart TV | Long-time Samsung users will still miss the old pop-up menu, but it seems like the platform has landed in a nice middle ground, | ★★★☆☆ |
TV benchmarks: comparison
| TV | Peak Brightness (tested) | Delta-E (tested) | BT2020 Color Volume (tested) | Input Lag (tested) |
| Hisense U8K | 2004.58 nits | 4.4614 | 80.41% | 13.2ms |
| LG G3 OLED | 1360.79 nits | 1.8611 | 72.49% | 9.2ms |
| TCL QM8 | 2344.55 nits | 3.232 | 76.5% | 16ms |
| Samsung QN90C | 1546.55 nits | 2.2404 | 77.15% | 9.2ms |
| Hisense U6K | 525.14 nits | 3.5783 | 80.98% | 10.2ms |
| Sony A95L OLED | 1260.79 nits | 2.856 | 89.56% | 16.1ms |
| Samsung S90C | 1072.64 nits | 1.3184 | 78.23% | 9.2ms |
| LG C3 OLED | 819.9 nits | 1.3908 | 73.95% | 9.1ms |
| Samsung QN900C | 2433.56 nits | 2.8686 | 69.53% | 9.6ms |
When testing TVs we use an X-Rite i1 Pro spectrophotometer, a SpectraCal VideoForge Pro pattern generator and Portrait Displays’ Calman calibration software.
How to choose the best TV for you
While the above list can tell which TV is the best based on empirical data, that TV might not be right for you because of the screen size, the screen brightness, the sound output, the resolution and/or the supported HDR formats. You might want a 50-inch TV that’s ultra-bright to compensate for the amount of ambient light in the room, which means an OLED TV might not work for you.
We have extensive shopping advice, like our TV buying guide and figuring out what size TV you should buy. And if you still have questions about smart TV features and capabilities, check out Smart TVs: Everything you need to know.
Need a quick tutorial on TV technology? Here’s a short primer.
Screen sizes: This is probably the best place to start when buying a TV. If you plan on wall-mounting the TV, measure the dimensions of the wall space you want to fill. Having the length, width and diagonal measurement will quickly and easily eliminate 80% of the TVs on the market. If you plan on putting it in a cabinet or on a stand, measure the width of where the TV will sit, and use that to start shopping.
Brightness: The common wisdom for buying a TV is that, the brighter the room is, the brighter of a TV you’ll want to buy. Why? Well, ambient light can wash out color saturation or, worse, lead to glare on the screen. Ultimately the amount of glare will depend on what type of TV you buy (OLED TVs with a glass screen are more reflective than, say, QLED TVs with an anti-glare screen), but a good rule of thumb is that OLED TVs are usually better in light-controlled rooms while bright LED-LCD TVs work better in brighter rooms with more ambient light.
Refresh Rate: If you’ve ever looked at a TV box, you’ll probably see some weird marketing terms like Motion Rate 240 or 480, or something ridiculous. These don’t mean anything. Well, they do, sort of – but it’s purposely obfuscated. All TVs available right now have one of two native panel refresh rates: 60Hz or 120Hz. These numbers tell you how quickly a TV scans and replaces each pixel in a second. 60Hz is 60 times in one second. 120Hz is 120 times in one second. You want a higher number if you want smoother motion (i.e. you plan on watching sports or playing games).
Ports: We generally recommend opting for more ports, so that you never have to manually unplug and re-plug HDMI cables to switch from your streaming device or Blu-ray player to your game console or other device. Three ports is common, but nicer TVs usually have 4 HDMI ports. You’ll also want make sure at least one is HDMI 2.1; our guide to the best HDMI 2.1 TVs can help here. (Still confused? Check out TV ports explained: What all those HDMI, USB and other connections are for?)
Smart software: Almost all TVs are smart TVs these days. That means they come stocked with some sort of smart platform, whether it’s Roku TV, Google TV, WebOS, Tizen or something else. Each one has its own strengths and weaknesses, so be sure to familiarize yourself with them before you buy. Some of the TVs are among the best Alexa compatible devices and best Google Home compatible devices you can own, so pay attention to which smart home platform the sets offer before choosing.
Price: Lastly, you’ll need to factor price into the equation. For the most part, unfortunately, better TVs do cost more. Just like PCs, TVs that are more expensive come with better specs and more features, so typically paying less for a TV means making some sort of sacrifice. The good news? You can find smaller 4K TVs (42-, 43- and 50-inch TVs) that sell for less than $500, which will spare you some cash for some of the best soundbars or best streaming devices to go with your set.
However, you’ll want to pay more for features like HDR support and a decent number of HDMI ports. Generally speaking, premium 4K TVs can sell for thousands of dollars, but we find that the sweet spot for superior performance and value is right around the $2,000 mark. 8K TVs, on the other hand, run from pricey to mortgage-your-house levels of expensive, with new smaller models selling for as little as $2,000, but can cost upwards of tens of thousands.
How we test the best TVs
Matthew Murray
Matthew Murray is the head of testing for Future, coordinating and conducting product testing at Tom’s Guide and other Future publications. He has previously covered technology and performance arts for multiple publications, edited numerous books, and worked as a theatre critic for more than 16 years.
How we test TVs
Evaluating TVs is about more than just kicking back to watch a movie. We lab test every TV, measuring color gamut, color accuracy and brightness to objectively see which sets are the best for these key indicators. We also test for lag time – a key detail for gaming – measuring to the millisecond how long it takes for content to travel from the original source to the screen. We use these results to make numbers-based comparisons about color and display quality.
We also spend time with each set for real-world evaluation and see how our lab results translate into more subjective performance. We also compare sets side by side and view samples from the latest movies, specialized test patterns that highlight strengths and weaknesses of each display, and a range of content across several sources. With that information, we can tell you which TVs look best, sound best and offer the best viewing experience.
Finally, we evaluate the smart TV functions and apps for each TV, looking at everything from the remote control design to the voice interaction.
We put all of that data together with our real-world testing and stack it against the price of the TV. The result is a score that we feel best represents the totality of that model, and how well it stands up against its contemporary rivals. A TV that scored highly five years ago may not score as highly against a newer model, but we do our best to update reviews when newer models become available.
Read more
Get a broader view of everything the best TV brands have to offer by checking out the full roster of 4K and 8K TVs from every major manufacturer.
If you’ve narrowed down your TV shopping by brand, price range or screen size, check out our picks for the best TVs in each.
Best 4K TVs | Best smart TVs for streaming | Best TVs for gaming
The best TVs under $1000 | The best TVs under $500
Best TV brands | Best Samsung TVs | Best TCL TVs | Best LG TVs | Best Roku TVs | Best Google TVs | Best OLED TVs | Best QLED TVs | Best 8K TVs | Best HDMI 2.1 TV | Best TVs with ATSC 3.0 | Best TVs with Chromecast
The smallest smart TVs | Best 43-inch TVs | Best 50-inch TVs | Best 55-inch TVs | Best 65-inch TVs | Best 70-inch TVs | Best 75-inch TVs | Best 85-inch TVs
And don’t forget to watch out for the latest TV reviews.
